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The moderating influence of instructional intensity and word type on the acquisition of academic vocabulary in young English language learners

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Reading and Writing
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Abstract

This study used a within-subjects design to explore two instructional conditions for developing vocabulary in second-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs)—extended instruction and embedded instruction implemented during shared interactive reading. Words assigned to the extended condition were directly taught using a multifaceted approach that included visuals, bilingual definitions, examples, spelling, and partner-talk about the words’ meaning. Words assigned to the embedded condition were taught solely through brief definitions to embedded text, writing activities, and songs. In the control condition students heard the target words read aloud during shared interactive reading but without definitions or direct instruction. The study also explored the interaction between instructional condition and word type. Four types of words—abstract cognates, abstract noncognates, concrete cognates, and concrete noncognates—were randomly assigned to each condition. Nine teachers in four schools and 187 second-grade ELs participated in this within-subjects intervention, which took place in transitional bilingual classrooms. Findings indicated that across all word types, both extended and embedded instruction were more effective than the control condition in helping ELs acquire vocabulary. Findings also indicated that extended instruction was more effective then embedded instruction for all word types except concrete cognates suggesting that these young Spanish-speaking ELs were advantaged by word knowledge in their home language. Finally, while embedded instruction was less effective than extended instruction, it was much more effective than a control condition. Embedded instruction takes significantly less preparation and instructional time than extended instruction, offering teachers a practical way to teach more vocabulary to ELs. © 2018 Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature
The moderating influence of instructional intensity
and word type on the acquisition of academic
vocabulary in young English language learners
Diane August
1,3
Lauren Artzi
1
Christopher Barr
2
David Francis
2
Published online: 20 January 2018
Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract This study used a within-subjects design to explore two instructional
conditions for developing vocabulary in second-grade Spanish-speaking English
learners (ELs)—extended instruction and embedded instruction implemented during
shared interactive reading. Words assigned to the extended condition were directly
taught using a multifaceted approach that included visuals, bilingual definitions,
examples, spelling, and partner-talk about the words’ meaning. Words assigned to
the embedded condition were taught solely through brief definitions to embedded
text, writing activities, and songs. In the control condition students heard the target
words read aloud during shared interactive reading but without definitions or direct
instruction. The study also explored the interaction between instructional condition
and word type. Four types of words—abstract cognates, abstract noncognates,
concrete cognates, and concrete noncognates—were randomly assigned to each
condition. Nine teachers in four schools and 187 second-grade ELs participated in
this within-subjects intervention, which took place in transitional bilingual class-
rooms. Findings indicated that across all word types, both extended and embedded
instruction were more effective than the control condition in helping ELs acquire
vocabulary. Findings also indicated that extended instruction was more effective
then embedded instruction for all word types except concrete cognates suggesting
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-
018-9821-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
&Diane August
daugust@air.org
1
American Institutes for Research (AIR), 1000 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW, Washington,
DC 20007, USA
2
Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics (TIMES), University of Houston,
4849 Calhoun Rd, Rm 373, Houston, TX 77204-6022, USA
3
4500 Wetherill Road, Bethesda, MD 20816, USA
123
Read Writ (2018) 31:965–989
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-018-9821-1
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... Among the 12 quasi-experimental studies, 8 of these studies were able to establish baseline equivalence, 6 by ensuring that groups matched on meaning-based outcomes, such as through L2 vocabulary assessment scores (k = 5) and English achievement scores (k = 2; Atay & Kurt, 2006;Mancilla-Martinez, 2010) (see Table 1). August et al. (2018) used a within-subject design and did not need to establish baseline equivalency. One study used meaning-based covariates to adjust for pretest group differences (Ulanoff & Pucci, 1999). ...
... A large effect for receptive, definitional vocabulary was found for treatment groups who were provided with extended vocabulary instruction (e.g., pre-teaching words; glossary entries; word wall; discussing target words during interactive reading) with follow-up vocabulary reinforcement versus the comparison groups given text-embedded vocabulary definitions (i.e., brief definitions embedded in text) with (d = 1.93) and without follow-up vocabulary reinforcement (d = 0.99). The effect sizes for August et al. (2018) were reported for the receptive, written definitional vocabulary, focusing on abstract noncognates (M = 1.17, SD = 0.56, range: 0.82-1.81), ...
... Similar to previous findings with monolingual learners (Marulis & Neuman, 2010;Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986), eight studies investigating the explicitness of vocabulary instruction as a distinguishing feature from its comparison group(s) demonstrated that these direct approaches produced medium-to-large effect sizes for EBs across grades (preschool to fifth grade). Homogeneous groups of Spanish or Portuguese-speaking EBs receiving explicit meaningbased instruction outperformed peers on breadth of curriculum-based vocabulary knowledge who were exposed to vocabulary incidentally (Collins, 2004;Ulanoff & Pucci, 1999) and implicitly (e.g., embedded definitions in a shared reading; August et al., 2016, August et al., 2018Spycher, 2009), who were not exposed to word/word part meanings (Filippini et al., 2012) or who received typical instruction (Mancilla-Martinez, 2010). The positive impact of explicit meaning-based instruction was consistent even for studies with participants from low SES backgrounds. ...
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... Treatment conditions were determined to be partly aligned if there were up to three differences found across treatment characteristics. Six studies (21%) reported findings on treatment conditions that were partly aligned (i.e., Atay & Kurt, 2006;August et al., 2018;Filippini et al., 2012;Leacox & Jackson, 2014;Nelson et al., 2011). Of these, all but one study varied the explicitness of instruction and level of contextual support between treatment characteristics. ...
... Of these, all but one study varied the explicitness of instruction and level of contextual support between treatment characteristics. In addition to these characteristics, two studies also varied the vocabulary exposure across treatment conditions (August et al., 2018;Filippini et al., 2012). Finally, only Leacox and Jackson (2014) varied the level of home language support across their treatment conditions (minimal support vs. significant support). ...
... Receptive Nine studies featured comparison groups with closely aligned conditions and used curriculum-based measures to determine children's breadth of receptive vocabulary outcomes. Five of these studies featured measures that elicited students' oral responses (Méndez et al., 2015;Schunk, 1999;Silverman & Hines, 2009;Vadasy et al., 2015;Vadasy & Sanders, 2016) whereas four studies used measures eliciting written responses (August et al., 2016(August et al., , 2018Avila & Sadoski, 1996;Zhang & Schumm, 2000). Three studies investigated the same degree of balanced (decontextualised and contextualised) support (3) between one comparison group pairing (Méndez et al., 2015;Silverman & Hines, 2009;Vadasy et al., 2015). ...
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... Such gestures may provide information about movement or location that may be difficult to encode in oral language. Indeed, studies exploring abstract word learning through verbal and nonverbal support, including representational gestures, demonstrated increases in depth of word knowledge as well as definitional knowledge ( August et al., 2018 ;Hadley et al., 2016 ). Research also shows that adults include more gestures in their speech ( Jacobs & Garnham, 2007 ) or use larger gestures ( Holler & Stevens, 2007 ), when they perceive that their audience knows less about the topic at hand, suggesting that adults view gesturing as a means for scaffolding understanding of speech or unfamiliar words. ...
... Literacy education must be relevant to the child's cultural and social context (Ishizuka & Stephens, 2019). Because young children need an active engagement with print material from a very early age, reading readiness must be nurtured by all the adults who interact with the child; this includes the home setting as well as the school environment (August et al., 2018). Supports for literacy skill development should be embedded throughout a young child's early learning experiences regardless of social-emotional competency, literacy skills, or socioeconomic status (Heinecken, 2019). ...
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... ELs with limited oral language proficiency in English would be expected to score lower than children with higher levels of English oral language proficiency on these assessments, which would lead the algorithms to recommend more time in teacher-managed, meaning-focused instruction. Increased time in small-group instruction that supports oral language development aligns with recommendations within the existing literature related to how best to support ELs in the classroom (e.g., August et al., 2016August et al., , 2018Baker et al., 2014;Crevecoeur et al., 2013;Gersten & Baker, 2000;Gunn et al., 2000;Shanahan & Beck, 2006). We recognize, however, that more precise recommendations could likely be made by incorporating both English and native language skill-this is a direction for future work. ...
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